Stories have been told for Millennia, but when movies are made with flashy super heroes and scaly monsters, it’s hard for books to compete for attention. Reading and comprehension are important skills to learn and maintain at any age, whether it’s a short story at 6 to a report at work.
Often reading can be left behind for other pieces of homework or entertainment, but reading doesn’t need to be a chore, it should be presented to them as a joy. When kids develop an interest in reading, they develop other skills in comprehension, broaden their mind to different ideas, how to relate to different people and engage creative thinking.
Introduce Reading Early
Introduce books and reading early; like you would read to a baby at night to help them sleep, you can continue this habit and have a period of reading every day at a nominated time. With time, it becomes a normal part of the routine and something to look forward to.
Discussion
You can read anything to a child and they will soak it up like a sponge, but discussing what was read afterwards will engage their minds to think about life lessons and morals it could teach. Reading is an active activity if you want it to be.
Find Books to Suit the Child
It can be difficult to motivate some kids to read, but often they don’t like what they are given to read. Next time, bring your child along to the library or book store and ask them questions about what interests them and let them choose what stories they want to delve into. When their interests can change by the month or week, asking them to read will be less of a fight when you have slowly collected a range of books they have personally chosen.